


Unfurl

by Skylark



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Gold & Silver & Crystal | Pokemon Gold Silver Crystal Versions
Genre: Character Study, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Growing Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 09:17:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skylark/pseuds/Skylark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's time for him to take wing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unfurl

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this on 2010-05-20 and then, mysteriously, never published it. I just rediscovered it, so up it goes.

The pidgey lands at his feet.  
  
He's six years old and the grass around him is swaying in the breeze, high and soft. His father laughs—all rounded corners and unshakable confidence—as he gathers the boy and the bird together in his arms. "Friends," he says, his voice rumbling in his chest. "And more than friends. Pokémon and you. Birds and you. This pidgey's heart, your heart, they are one."  
  
He squeezes them close, and the pidgey's eye blinks inches from his own, alive and unafraid. He can feel its rapid heart beating, and the whisper of down feathers against his cheek.  
  
"When you achieve this," his father says above him, merging with the swirl of clouds and sky and evening breeze, "Then you will be a true trainer, my son."  
  
\--  
  
"Again," his father intones. Falkner's hands clench into fists, his hair falling to cover his face. The older man waits patiently, arms folded across his chest, immovable as stone.  
  
His fallen pidgey wobbles upright. His father nods. "Again."  
  
The boy's voice is a terrified shriek. "Peck!"  
  
"Fly," his father says, and the pidgeotto darts into the sky. Pidgey's wings make the sound of soft drumbeats as it flies, chasing the other into the blue.  
  
The pidgeotto falls like a thunderbolt, and the two plummet to earth. When the dust clears, pidgey doesn't move, and Falkner runs onto the battlefield, falling to his knees before it.  
  
When the boy looks up, his father is standing over him, and his eyes are filled with tears.  
  
"Now you know," the man says, bending down and cradling the little bird in his hands. "Do not fight when you know you cannot win. Remember this."  
  
They go to the Pokémon Center together, and his father leaves him there. Falkner stays until the pokemon is safely returned to him.  He steps outside, holding the gentle bird in his trembling hands. "I can't protect you," he whispers, and releases it into the open air.  
  
He never asks his father for a rematch.  
  
\--  
  
Two poké balls are pressed into his hands.  
  
His father heaves his pack onto his shoulders, and there's a jingle of camping supplies; it vanishes quickly in the cloud of noise. Violet City is old, but full of life, and the air is full of the sounds of children playing, birds chirping, the cheerful clatter of a bicycle bell. Falkner knows them all by heart, because they're a part of him and the city he loves.  
  
"They are yours now," his father says. "Take them."  
  
"But I—"  
  
"You are not ready," his father agrees. "But you will be soon." The large hand claps onto his shoulder. "My son. You will soar." His father vanishes into the sunset, and soon the two poké balls are all that remains.  
  
He is fourteen, and he does not understand.  
  
\--

The sun pours over the highland grasses, touching everything with gold.  
  
Falkner has long since remodeled the gym, and now he looks down upon the city from its tall perch. Not much has changed: children still laugh, the grass still grows, the sky is still endless and perfect and blue.  
  
Pidgeotto's showing his age—his talons are yellowed, his beak is cracked, but he still fights with pride and grace. But Falkner can't avoid battles that he knows he can't win, and he sees his father every time the Zephyr Badge leaves his hands.  
  
As time passes, he comes to see his father's disappearance as a sign of his respect. His father gave him everything that mattered to him in the world: his gym, his pokémon, and his wisdom. When he left, he trusted his son to make him proud. Falkner wonders if he has, if he continues to do so, but he knows he still has far to go. Sometimes he thinks he'll never get there.  
  
Although he spends his days high in the air, he feels like he's still on the ground, staring up forever as his father looms above him. He wonders if he's doing it right. He wants to ask for advice and show him how far he's come. He wonders where his father is, every day, every hour.  
  
One day, he stops wondering. And just like that, as if the change has finally summoned it, the pidgey lands at his feet.


End file.
